International Law

Afghanistan papers put Wikileaks, maybe more, centre stage

Posted on July 26, 2010
Will we see take-up here of the merits of the war in an election campaign dubbed last week as "the Battle of the Bland"? Given Australia's support, heightened by the fact 17 Australian soldiers have been killed, six in a little over a month and that Julian Assange of Wikileaks is one of our own, the leak of 75000 classified Afghanistan documents (with more to come) should mean Afghanistan receives more attention during the  campaign than what we have had so far - a virtual one line unity ticket that "we're there to see the mission" and "the just cause" through...

Australian Privacy Commissioner appointed

Posted on July 22, 2010
Timothy Pilgrim, Deputy Privacy Commissioner since 1998, was appointed Australian Privacy Commissioner on 19 July, replacing Karen Curtis, and offered these thoughts on the challenges ahead.

Political donations off the record-till February 2012

Posted on July 21, 2010
While there will be plenty of argy bargy about black holes in spending plans during the course of the election campaign, Ari Sharp in the Sydney Morning Herald reminded us of another: that our weak laws do not require timely transparency of political donations, or the identity of those donating $11500 or less...

SA travel costs-$77,000 first, please

Posted on July 20, 2010
South Australia not only seems to be stuck with Victoria as our Freedom of Information reform laggards, it also seems to be stuck in the pre-computer age when the travel costs of public servants can only be found after a search of mounds of paper records...

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Dr Haneef loses another round

Posted on July 19, 2010
In Haneef and Australian Federal Police (the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions was also a respondent) [2010] AATA 514, Senior Member McCabe upheld the agencies' Freedom of Information exemption claims, with a small number of minor variations, in respect of documents withheld concerning his detention and cancellation of visa in 2007...

Tasmania's "push" model needs more push

Posted on July 19, 2010
Three weeks on, Tasmania's Right to Information Act is apparently yet to produce anything from the much vaunted shift to pro-active publication of information, according to this report by David Killick in The Mercury:"The new laws took effect on July 1, replacing the old Freedom of Information Act...

Open Government Declararation- just in time for next time

Posted on July 18, 2010
Overshadowed by the calling of a Federal election in the 24 hours following, Minister for Finance and Deregulation Lindsay Tanner on Friday issued The Declararation of Open Government, following through on the earlier commitment to make such a statement as recommended by the Gov 2...

Hullo and goodbye to section 12 of NSW Local Government Act

Posted on July 14, 2010
The commencement of the NSW Government Information (Public Access) Act on 1 July also saw repeal of section 12 of the Local Government Act, ending for local authorities the complexity arising from dual rights of access to documents under the LGA and FOI acts...

Google thrashed with a feather over "very serious" privacy breach

Posted on July 12, 2010
The Australian in "Privacy laws get internet update" reports Special Minister of State Senator Joe Ludwig yesterday committing the Federal Government to amending the Privacy Act to introduce civil penalties - to be imposed by the Federal Court or the Federal Magistrates Court - for "serious breaches when other enforcement measures are not sufficient"...

Surveillance camera dangers concern this audience

Posted on July 08, 2010
The IQ2 debate in Sydney this week, organised by the St James Ethics Centre and sponsored by the Sydney Morning Herald on the proposition ''Better more cameras than more crime'', saw a win for those arguing, among other points, that privacy concerns should trump the rush to more and more surveillance cameras...

Airline safety audit reports not exempt

Posted on July 07, 2010
Expect this decision by Senior Member Taylor in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal this week  to make big news, at least in aviation circles. Michael McKinnon of the Seven Network and Mr Vasta the assistant federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association substantially succeeded in a Freedom of Information case against the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, winning access to CASA safety audit reports from 2006-07 concerning problems with, and standards for, maintenance of Qantas aircraft offshore...

Information commissioners line up

Posted on July 06, 2010
The 2010 National Administrative Law Forum will be held at the University of Sydney 22-23 July.  The theme is Delivering  Administrative Justice. Details here with a wide range of topics up for discussion. This panel session on Day 2 should be interesting- and a first, with Australia's four information commissioners sharing a stage for the first time...

Simple as ABC/BBC: Middle East reporting out of FOI bounds

Posted on July 05, 2010
Previous posts here about the exclusion from the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act of documents held by Australia's public broadcaster the ABC (and SBS) "in relation to program materials" have mentioned what appeared to be a contrast with the situation in the UK, where the BBC enjoys an exemption for documents concerning journalism...

NSW Police score second front page

Posted on July 05, 2010
Yesterday's Telegraph front page is followed today by Taser abuse covered up by police in the Sydney Morning Herald, with this account of the year long Freedom of Information battle to access the report. Dylan Welch says the Administrative Decisions Tribunal "quickly decided" the Herald deserved access, although in the absence of a decision on the Tribunal website, sounds like a cave-in after five preliminary conferences...

No news in good news

Posted on July 04, 2010
New right to information laws in NSW and Tasmania from 1 July didn't spark much coverage in major media in either state with no take up I can see on the media release  by Tasmanian Attorney General Lara Giddings welcoming the commencement of the RTI Act, or on a similar release by NSW Information Commissioner Deirdre O'Donnell...

NSW agencies put best foot forward on GIPA day

Posted on July 01, 2010
NSW agencies appear to have done a good job to post Government Information (Public Access) information on the web from Day One. I can't vouch for quality, and will be particularly interested to see who goes further than the modest but useful mandatory publication requirements, but the following list of links to the relevant web page of major departments and agencies might come in handy...

Let the new eras begin.

Posted on June 30, 2010
Image: City of Long Beach CAMaybe the earth didn't move but new right to information laws commence today in NSW, 21 years to the day since the introduction of Freedom of Information, and Tasmania where the Ombudsman is the state information commissioner equivalent ...

Queenslanders take to right to information laws

Posted on June 28, 2010
Government agencies in NSW and Tasmania, gearing up for the commencement of new right to information laws later this week, and Commonwealth agencies readying for change in November, will be interested in (concerned about?) the report by Patrick Lion in The Courier Mail last week (Rush for right to know, 24 June-no link available)...

Rudd's modest at best legacy on open government

Posted on June 27, 2010
There are plenty of post mortems out there on the demise of the Rudd government, so I won't add much beyond these brief reminders of the big talk and slow and mostly modest delivery on openness and transparency over the last two and a half years. Getting Gov 2...

NSW Information and Privacy Commission coming..after August.

Posted on June 27, 2010
The NSW Government introduced into Parliament on 24 June the Privacy and Government Information Legislation Amendment Bill to bring the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner together into a single executive body, the Information and Privacy Commission, "creating a unified administrative hub, a one-stop shop for information management in New South Wales...

Freedom of Information: High Court Osland decision

Posted on June 24, 2010
ABC TV The High Court in Osland v Secretary to the Department of Justice [2010] HCA 24 decided that the Victorian Court of Appeal had failed to do what the High Court in an earlier decision had ordered, and stepped in to do the job itself. In a unanimous decision ( three separate judgments) the six judges found there was no error of law in the decision of the President of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Justice Morris in August 2005 that the differences between the advices from senior counsel to the Victorian Attorney General whether to grant a petition of mercy on behalf of Mrs Osland provided the "powerful reasons" for requiring access to the documents in the public interest...

High Court orders release of Osland advice

Posted on June 23, 2010
Here is The  Age report on yesterday's decision in the Osland case, a great win and of wider significance in Victoria at least. I'll have something to say when I get the chance to read the decision itself.

NSW GIPA down to the nitty gritty

Posted on June 22, 2010
With the 1 July start date for the NSW Government Information (Public Access) Act looming, the Office of Information Commissioner has released guidelines on a contentious issue that has raised concerns in the local government sector, and publicised a regulation that covers some important issues relevant to all agencies...

Some dark corners for Operation Sunlight.

Posted on June 21, 2010
Ross GittinsOperation Sunlight-the Federal Government's "reform agenda to improve the openness and transparency of public sector budgetary and financial management" has been mentioned here a couple of times, including this good self report card from Minister Tanner and an earlier comment that there hasn't been much reporting on or analysis of the Government's claims...

The past as prelude, at the movies

Posted on June 21, 2010
The terrific documentary The Most Dangerous Man In America is a must see for those who remember the Vietnam war era. But it will be an eye opener for those who have never heard of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers but who listen with some scepticism to what we are being told 40 years later about current wars in which the US, Australia and other countries find ourselves...

Iceland hot on information freedom

Posted on June 21, 2010
Wikileaks founder, Australian Julian Assange, thought to be sitting on a pile of unpublished classified material about Iraq and Afghanistan, has good reason to avoid the US according to the Washington Post, but spoke to a conference this week in Brussels, and has spent large chunks of time in Iceland recently...

Cabinet confidentiality breached-sun still rising

Posted on June 20, 2010
The claim is often made that cabinet confidentiality and solidarity is at the heart of the Westminster system of government. It's a fairly watertight exemption in all our freedom of information laws-none of our governments will have a bar of adding a public interest test to this category of documents...

More confidentiality the answer for Queensland councils?

Posted on June 17, 2010
It was the ongoing prospect of unfair media coverage that Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said justified a "cabinet exemption" under the Right to Information Act for some documents concerning the operation of Brisbane City Council contained in the City of Brisbane Bill that passed Queensland Parliament last week...

Leaders urged to let us know, citizens urged to speak up

Posted on June 16, 2010
The speech by former High Court chief justice Sir Anthony Mason in presenting the Accountability Roundtable awards for Integrity was a depressing summary of the state of our democratic institutions, and citizen disengagement from the process.  You won't be thrilled to learn that "In all probability democracies can survive the indifference, even the cynicism of their peoples, though it would be a mistake to take this proposition for granted" (emphasis added)...

Digital age calls for removal of digital impediments

Posted on June 15, 2010
An article by Jane Fae Ozimek in The (UK) Register Commons slapped for FOI fastidiousness raises issues about access to digital information that we may see play out in Australia. The question: would a request for digital information to be sent to an email address that will automatically publish the response be a valid application, and produce an eventual positive ruling, albeit after a two year battle, from the equivalent of the Information Commissioner here? The Information Commissioner in a Freedom of Information decision has ordered a reluctant House of Commons ( yes, yes, I know you know that only the Tasmanian Parliament in this country will be subject to a similar law from 1 July, but will leave it at that) to release electronic copies of any documents discussing or evaluating the possible deployment of electronic petitioning systems in Parliament , and to send them to the www...

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